In a chapter in a recent book, Jonathan Wilson expressed a common sentiment about the history of the canon of the New Testament. He referred to "the historical messiness of the formation of the canon" (EOB, 243). Different people can mean different things when they refer to the canonical process as messy. Why is the twenty-seven-book canon not advocated by any extant sources until so long after the time of the apostles? Why are there so many disagreements on canonical issues among the patristic sources? What about the large number of books that didn't make it into the canon, but might have? Why are there so many different arguments for and against the canonicity of the books? If Christianity is true, how could God expect people to sort through all of these issues? I want to address some points that I think are relevant to what many people have in mind when they ask such questions.

Often, the questions are asked by those who want us to follow some alleged infallible guide who will sort through these issues for us. Critics of Christianity aren't the only people who ask such questions. They're often joined by Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox, for example.

Bruce Metzger's book on the New Testament canon (CNT) is one of the most respected and influential works on the subject in recent years. In the process of discussing the wide diversity of canonical opinions that have existed over the centuries, he mentions some similar disagreements about extra-Biblical literature. He mentions a book attributed to King Charles I, whose authorship is disputed to this day (n. 2 on 12). He refers to an Alexandrian canon of classical Greek authors, including authors of pre-Christian times, that "did not reach a final and fossilized form until the second century of our Era" (111). Clement of Alexandria, who recognized the large majority of New Testament books as scripture, "was well aware of the elaborate discussions concerning the genuineness of Orphic literature current in his day. Practically nothing had been written by Orpheus himself, and almost everything in the Orphic tradition was open to debate." (111) Theophilus of Antioch's authorship of a commentary on the gospels was disputed in ancient times (n. 9 on 117). The authorship of a treatise attributed to Athenagoras is disputed by modern scholars (n. 26 on 126). The authenticity of the Secret Gospel Of Mark is disputed (n. 39 on 132). The authorship of a work attributed to Cyprian has been questioned (163-164). The canon of John Chrysostom's writings is disputed (n. 10 on 215).

To add to Metzger's examples, what about the canon of the apostolic fathers (the earliest church fathers)? Ancient sources and modern scholars have disagreed. Are any of the Ignatian letters genuine? If so, which ones? Should The Epistle To Diognetus be included among the apostolic fathers? Which fragments attributed to Papias are genuine? What about the writings attributed to Justin Martyr? Which belong in his canon of writings? What about the many disputes, historically and among modern scholars, regarding the alleged writings of Popes and rulings issued by church councils? Kent Clarke gives many examples of forgeries and authorship disputes among ancient pagans (TCD, 450-452).

In addition to recognizing that such disputes are common in extra-Biblical literature, not just with regard to Biblical books or religious literature, we should remember the limits of the disputes over the New Testament. In an earlier article, I discussed the widespread agreement of the earliest Christians regarding the large majority of the New Testament canon. Even the most disputed books seem to have been accepted by a majority in the ante-Nicene era. And books like The Shepherd Of Hermas and The Epistle Of Barnabas weren't as popular as is often suggested.

Think about how significant the early canonical agreements are in light of the complexities involved. Early Christianity was spread out over a wide region. Think of the diverse locations of men like Clement of Rome, Papias, Irenaeus, and Tertullian. The early Christians were also diverse in many other ways. In forming a New Testament canon, they weren't just making judgments about the writings of one man, but about the writings of the apostles and their associates. Paul traveled widely. What if he wrote something along the way that you, a Christian of the patristic era, hadn't heard about? What about the linguistic differences between the gospel of John and Revelation? Should James, the brother of Jesus, be considered an apostle? Who wrote Hebrews? Should the book be considered scripture? Coming to agreement on a canon of apostolic books is in some ways more difficult than coming to agreement on a canon of the writings of one man, such as Plato or Thomas Jefferson.

We should keep in mind that when people refer to the diversity of canonical beliefs among ancient Christians (or later Christians), they're often letting everybody join the discussion. Despite the widespread agreement of both ante-Nicene and later Christians on the canonicity of 1 Peter, Eldon Epp mentions a fourth-century manuscript that allegedly reflects doubts about 1 Peter's canonicity on the part of the author of the manuscript (TCD, 491-492). But who wrote that manuscript? Given our ignorance of its background, how much weight should we assign to it? Who wrote other manuscripts often cited in canonical discussions? Who wrote The Epistle Of Barnabas? Or the Muratorian Canon? If we're going to include every source from Hermas to Tertullian to Athanasius to a fifth-century manuscript from an unknown author to Pope Innocent III to Martin Luther to a pastor of a modern liberal church who doesn't think Revelation should be in the canon, then shouldn't we, for the sake of comparison, also allow everybody to join the discussion about other literary canons? If you searched the historical record for every source who comments on the subject, you would find a wide diversity of views concerning the literary canons of many historical figures. You would find many different beliefs on the web alone.

One of the reasons why there have been so many disagreements about the New Testament canon over the centuries is that it's a subject that so many people want to address. Not as many people are going to be concerned about the canon of writings of an ancient mathematician or a medieval bishop.

The historical developments surrounding the New Testament canon aren't as unusual or difficult as they may initially appear to be. Lee McDonald writes:

"Most biblical scholars have concluded that the writings of the New Testament addressed the needs of specific communities and that the writers had the needs of those communities in mind while telling their story (gospels) or admonishing specific churches (letters). It is therefore amazing that these ad hoc writings were viewed early on as having value for the wider Christian community for all time." (TCD, 418)

Bruce Metzger wrote:

"It is, therefore, not surprising that for several generations the precise status of a few books remained doubtful. What is really remarkable (as suggested earlier) is that, though the fringes of the New Testament canon remained unsettled for centuries, a high degree of unanimity concerning the greater part of the New Testament was attained within the first two centuries among the very diverse and scattered congregations not only throughout the Mediterranean world but also over an area extending from Britain to Mesopotamia." (CNT, 254)

We rely on the work of specialists in many areas of life. We know little about the production of food, but trust food manufacturers and grocery stores to give us products that are safe to consume. We know little about constructing bridges, but we trust those familiar with the subject to build bridges that we drive across. The same is true of medicine, politics, and many other things in life. The same principles apply to a historical consideration of the New Testament canon. The historical approach to the canon isn't the only approach one could take, as I discussed in a previous post. God isn't dependent on historical argumentation to lead His people to a recognition of what is and isn't scripture. But as far as the historical approach is concerned, it's significant when a large majority of scholars agree that the large majority of the earliest Christians agreed upon the large majority of the New Testament. Making a historical judgment about the minority of books that were more controversial is more difficult, but even that judgment isn't as hard as many make it out to be, for reasons I've explained elsewhere.

The vast majority of Christians aren't going to read a book on the canon by somebody like Lee McDonald or Bruce Metzger. And the vast majority of Americans aren't going to read a book on George Washington or the Revolutionary War by a historian. People form conclusions about history, and not just history as it relates to religion, on the basis of a wide variety of sources, many of them easily accessible. They believe what parents tell them, what they're taught in school, what they hear from the media, what neighbors and friends tell them, etc. Some become more discerning with the passing of time and seek increasing amounts of information from increasingly reliable sources. A person who accepts the twenty-seven-book New Testament on the basis of what his parents tell him at age five might accept that canon on the basis of the credibility of his seminary-educated pastor at age fifteen, accept it on the basis of what he's told by a Christian apologist who's more knowledgeable about the subject than his pastor at age twenty-five, and accept it on the basis of a book by a canon scholar that he reads at age thirty-five. Our beliefs about medicine, politics, science, American history, and other subjects sometimes develop in a similar manner.

The Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox who want us to follow their variety of infallible guide in order to arrive at a canon of scripture have to make judgments about history, such as what men like Papias and John Chrysostom did and didn't write, without that infallible guide. The atheist who asks how God can expect people to sort through the difficult historical issues involved in making a canonical judgment not only ignores the fact that God isn't dependent on historical argumentation in guiding His people, but also overlooks the many similar judgments he makes regularly regarding history, science, relationships, diet, medicine, and other issues in life.

There are some difficulties involved in making judgments about the canon of scripture. But those difficulties aren't as bad or as unusual as they're often made out to be.

5 comments:

For Catholic Christians that criticize the Protestant take on the canon, the question is not how one would go about recognizing which books are written by Apostles or something like that. The question is why the formal canon of the New Testament should be accepted as the unrevisable norm for Christian belief. The formal canon is the canon as it has been formulated and articulated publicly. This is to be distinguished from the material canon, which is the actual doctrinal content of all divinely-inspired books. Protestants seem to think that the canon as it has been organized and publicly articulated is unrevisable divine doctrine. But anything that is unrevisable divine doctrine must come from an infallible authority. On your view, what infallible authority has articulated the formal canon? Or can the formal canon be revised, because it is not infallible? Note that by revision I mean the *removal* of books.

Notice that I'm not talking about how the content of the New Testament got its authority, which is obviously by means of God inspiring the writers. Nor am I talking about our accuracy in making historical judgments (because our *accuracy* in recognizing something is a different issue from why the NT canon has *authority*). I'm just wondering about the normativity of the canon as it has been formulated publicly by the Church.

“For Catholic Christians that criticize the Protestant take on the canon, the question is not how one would go about recognizing which books are written by Apostles or something like that.”

I don’t know how you’re defining “Catholic Christians”, but I’ve come across many critics of Protestantism, such as Roman Catholics, who do question “how one would go about recognizing which books are written by Apostles”. Some even question the criterion of apostolicity.

You write:

“The question is why the formal canon of the New Testament should be accepted as the unrevisable norm for Christian belief.”

That’s a question you want to raise, but it’s not the subject I was addressing, and it doesn’t follow from the subject I was addressing.

You write:

”The formal canon is the canon as it has been formulated and articulated publicly. This is to be distinguished from the material canon, which is the actual doctrinal content of all divinely-inspired books.”

Where are you getting those definitions? A person could believe in the twenty-seven-book New Testament without that canon having been “formulated and articulated publicly”. If Origen was the first person to advocate that canon, for example, he would have believed in it prior to articulating it in public. Why is a public articulation being brought into this discussion? It seems that you’re framing the discussion in a manner that you think will lead to a desired conclusion.

You write:

” Protestants seem to think that the canon as it has been organized and publicly articulated is unrevisable divine doctrine. But anything that is unrevisable divine doctrine must come from an infallible authority. On your view, what infallible authority has articulated the formal canon?”

We’ve been over this ground with Perry Robinson. You can consult the archives, if you’re interested, such as here and here.

The canon can be said to come from God in the sense that God inspired the writers to author scripture, resulting in a canon of such documents. One can believe that the twenty-seven-book canon is correct, and is therefore not to be revised in the sense that we don’t expect anything true to be revised. We can believe that a public articulation of the canon is correct without considering the person or group who articulated that truth infallible.

You write:

”I'm just wondering about the normativity of the canon as it has been formulated publicly by the Church.”

The short answer is that the canon is revisable if God wants it to be revisable. The question, then, is whether God wants it to be revisable. I don't think we can answer that question a priori.

Speaking for myself, I prefer a revisable fallible canon to an unrevisable fallible canon. It's not necessarily a bad thing to have a revisable canon. For example, I'm glad that the Tridentine canon is revisable. It would be unfortunate if we were stuck with the Tridentine canon. If the Tridentine Fathers made the wrong call, then the Tridentine canon ought to be open to revision.

I realize that you're writing from an Orthodox standpoint rather than a Catholic standpoint, but I use that for illustrative purposes.

And, to my knowledge, the Orthodox church has never issued an official canon. So the canon of the Orthodox church is apparently revisable.

Here’s a selection from Metzger that I’ve posted before, under the title “Confusion in the East.” It just shows the, uh, bankruptcy of such statements as “the church gave us the canon”:

This section on “Attempts at Closing the Canon in the East’ may be brought to a close by calling attention to a most astonishing conciliar decision taken by the Trullan Synod held near the end of the seventh century. In 691 and 692 this council of the Eastern bishops met in the domed room (trullus) of the Emperor Justinian II’s palace at Constantinople in order to pass disciplinary canons by way of completing the work of the Fifth (533) and Sixth (680) General Councils. By one of its first decrees it determined the series of authorities which were to make law in the Church. Among these were the eighty five so-called Apostolic Canons (reproduced in the Appendix of this book), then the decrees of a certain number of Synods, notably those of Laodicea and Carthage; and finally a great number of Fathers, including, among others, Athanasius and Amphilochius. The Council thereby sanctioned implicitly, so far as the list of Biblical books is concerned, quite incongruous and contradictory opinions. Thus, as we have seen earlier, the Synod of Carthage and Athanasius recognized the minor Catholic Epistles and the Book of Revelation, while the Synod of Laodicea and the eighty-fifth Apostolic Canon omitted them. Furthermore, this same Canon includes as canonical the two Epistles of Clement which the other authorities did not receive. Such an extraordinary situation can be accounted for only on the supposition that the members of the Council had not even read the texts thus sanctioned.

In view of the confusion implicit in the pronouncement made on the canon at the Trullan Synod, it is not surprising that the later history of the Bible in the East continues to exhibit uncertainty and vacillation. According to a tabulation made by Westcott, in the tenth century no fewer than six different lists of the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments were received in the Greek Church.

At this point we terminate our investigation of the declarations of the synods and the usage of individuals in the East, and look at the Greek Bibles themselves that have survived from the Byzantine period. According to statistics collected by the Institute for New Testament Text-Research at Munster, as of 1980 the several parts of the New Testament were represented in Greek manuscripts as follows:

The entire Greek New Testament: 59MSS containing the Gospels, Acts, Catholic Epistles, and Pauline Epistles 149MSS and fragments of Gospels: 2120MSS and fragments of the Acts and Catholic Epistles 447MSS and fragments of the Pauline Epistles 571MSS and fragments of the Book of Revelation 228

From these figures it will be seen that the testimony of the copies of the Scriptures that have survived is more eloquent, in some ways, than the Fathers and more positive than the Councils on questions relative to the canon. It is obvious that the conception of the canon of the New Testament was not essentially a dogmatic issue whereby all parts of the text were regarded as equally necessary (the Gospels exist in 2328 copies; the Book of Revelation in 287 copies). The lower status of the Book of Revelation in the East is indicated also by the fact that it has never been included in the official lectionary of the Greek Church, whether Byzantine or modern. It is also significant, judging from the total number of surviving copies, that only a very small proportion of Christians could have ever owned, or even seen, a copy of the complete canon of the New Testament. (Metzger, “The Canon of the New Testament,” pgs 216-217)